An Exhibition of Retro Screensavers Opens in the Netherlands

In the 1990s, PC users didn’t have the ability to stream movies, video chat with friends, or play high-definition video games like they do today. Instead many turned to screensavers as a source of entertainment. The 3D pipes, zooming stars, and infinite brick walls of the early home computer era have all but vanished from our desktops, but Motherboard reports that a Dutch digital artist has made them the focus of his new art exhibit.

In “Sleepmode: The Art of the Screensaver,” Rafaël Rozendaal showcases 27 classic “moving paintings” from the not-too-distant past. They include the very first screensaver (a.k.a. a blank screen), as well as one of the first moving graphics developed by screensaver pioneer Jack Eastman (he was inspired to code “Flying Toasters” after walking into his kitchen late at night and picturing his toaster with wings).

At Rotterdam’s Het Nieuwe Instituut in the Netherlands, the four oldest screensavers will be displayed on their original PCs for added authenticity; the show opens January 27 and runs until June 25. If you can’t make it to Rotterdam in that time frame, Rozendaal has also made a collection of interviews with classic screensaver creators available online. And of course, you can always pull up one of the many old-school screen savers on YouTube and transport your computer back to 1999.

The Getty Center, Surrounded By Wildfires, Will Leave Its Art Where It Is

BY Jay Serafino

December 6, 2017

iStock

The wildfires sweeping through California have left countless homeowners and businesses scrambling as the blazes continue to grow out of control in various locations throughout the state. While art lovers worried when they heard that Los Angeles's Getty Center would be closing its doors this week, as the fires closed part of the 405 Freeway, there was a bit of good news. According to museum officials, the priceless works housed inside the famed Getty Center are said to be perfectly secure and won't need to be evacuated from the facility.

“The safest place for the art is right here at the Getty,” Ron Hartwig, the Getty’s vice president of communications, told the Los Angeles Times. According to its website, the museum was closed on December 5 and December 6 “to protect the collections from smoke from fires in the region,” but as of now, the art inside is staying put.

Though every museum has its own way of protecting the priceless works inside it, the Los Angeles Times notes that the Getty Center was constructed in such a way as to protect its contents from the very kind of emergency it's currently facing. The air throughout the gallery is filtered by a system that forces it out, rather than a filtration method which would bring air in. This system will keep the smoke and air pollutants from getting into the facility, and by closing the museum this week, the Getty is preventing the harmful air from entering the building through any open doors.

There is also a water tank at the facility that holds 1 million gallons in reserve for just such an occasion, and any brush on the property is routinely cleared away to prevent the likelihood of a fire spreading. The Getty Villa, a separate campus located in the Pacific Palisades off the Pacific Coast Highway, was also closed out of concern for air quality this week.

The museum is currently working with the police and fire departments in the area to determine the need for future closures and the evacuation of any personnel. So far, the fires have claimed more than 83,000 acres of land, leading to the evacuation of thousands of people and the temporary closure of I-405, which runs right alongside the Getty near Los Angeles’s Bel-Air neighborhood.

It takes a lot of creativity to turn a blank canvas into an inspired work of art. Japanese artist Tatsuo Horiuchi makes his pictures out of something that’s even more dull than a white page: an empty spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel.

When he retired, the 77-year-old Horiuchi, whose work was recently spotlighted by Great Big Story, decided he wanted to get into art. At the time, he was hesitant to spend money on painting supplies or even computer software, though, so he began experimenting with one of the programs that was already at his disposal.

Horiuchi's unique “painting” method shows that in the right hands, Excel’s graph-building features can be used to bring colorful landscapes to life. The tranquil ponds, dense forests, and blossoming flowers in his art are made by drawing shapes with the software's line tool, then adding shading with the bucket tool.

Since picking up the hobby in the 2000s, Horiuchi has been awarded multiple prizes for his creative work with Excel. Let that be inspiration for Microsoft loyalists who are still broken up about the death of Paint.

You can get a behind-the-scenes look at the artist's process in the video below.